Posted by Raphael on Nov 23, 2009 in My Business Adventures, Personal, Rants | 0 comments

If I can sum up this year…I’d say it’s been a huge life change. 10 months after Kingston arrived in my life it’s been amazingly rewarding and yet amazingly frustrating at the same time.

The amazing parts are obvious. If you don’t have a child in your life yet (wait don’t rush into it!), it’s hard to explain, but even the SMELL of your child is invigorating. No, we’re not talking about the stuff that comes out of the bottom end. But the smell of his hair, his face, even his baby breath is something I love.

I’m sure they’ll come a day when he’ll wake up with hauna (Hawaiian for stink) breath someday. But for now I’m enjoying what I can. When Kingston laughs, my whole world laughs with him.

The frustrating part of this year comes as an indirect result of such major life changes. I’ve faltered a bit in my business and it’s been personally very stressful and debilitating. My business is a bit like my first child…a big part of my pride and personality is thrown into Lowe Studio, and now it’s like I forgot about my first child because all my attention is on Kingston.

The last thing I want is for my clients, new and old, to think, “Oh, I can’t go to Lowe Studio anymore because he’s distracted with his kid”. I think there’s been a little of that going on I’m sad to say and I’m sure it may have affected a client here and there.

Why bring this up? Meh, you know guys…I’ve always had this web log of my business since the day I started this company. Once in a while I like going back 3 or 4 years and reading up on what might have been good and bad times back when. I want to be able to document all the bad parts of my business experiences just as much as I want to do the good parts…one day 3 years from now I can read this and think about how I might have tackled this problem.

What can I do? I’m not sure I have an easy answer to that. Apparently I might have to reverse the usual mantra “Work smarter, not harder” and for a while I’ll just have to work harder for a change until I get back on the good foot.

Apparently I’m not smart enough yet….